My gym arrived in the mail today!!!  Last week, DJ and I went exploring to see where the best gym would be to join.  We discovered a very disappointing fact - none of the gyms open here before 6:30!  We ordered this spin bike in the mail for less than the cost of 8 months gym membership.  My mr. handy man put it together for me.  Good thing we have a spacious bathroom - now it will be a bathroom/gym room.  For our prospective visitors - don't worry, I'll be done working out before you even get up. 

Monday night we went for a walk to a park near our house called Holland Park.  It was beautiful, more like a nature preserve than a park.  You really felt like you were out of the city and in the middle of nature (hence DJs wide smile :)  )

Home is where the heart roast is.  Apparently England is the home of roast and potatoes.  That's a custom we don't mind complying with. 

Sunday evening walk in Hyde Park.  So pretty.

This is the church building for the Hyde Park ward, our ward while we're here in London.  It's about a mile and a hald walk from our home.  This is also the visitor's center for the church in London.

We slowly getting settled into our house and it feels good to begin to get closer to normalcy.  We finally have more in our cupboards than crumpets and honey so we can start to cook at home now.  The grocery stores here are different - it took us a while to adjust.  The food is definitely more expensive, but they also have more specialty foods here that are harder to get, and even more expensive, in the states.  It's going to be fun to experiment and try different foods here.  

Today we went and explored the Tower of London.  The first portions of this castle were build in 1066, though it was expanded and added on by many monarchs through the years.  It was the primary royal residence until 1547 or so, and it is the home of many a prisoner and is famous for it's beheadings of traitors and enemies to the King (including his own wife, at times). 

Stephanie, I thought Eric might appreciate these pictures, as I know he plans to own a castle some day :-p

 Inside the outer wall of the castle

 The crown jewels are housed at London Tower, inside this building where the guard stands.  An interesting fact I did not know - all of the royal crowns and jewels were destroyed during the British civil war in 1649.  The monarchy regained control of Britain in 1660  Most of the oldest pieces in the collection date back to Charles II, who ordered the replacement and recreation of most of the pieces that were lost during the revolution.  The crowns in this collection are incredible - bedazzled and full of sparkle and very large precious stones and diamonds. One of the crowns was so heavy, the queen had it carried ahead of her because she couldn't bear the weight of it on her head!

 Traitor's gate - originally intended for the receipt of supplies into the fortress, it became known as traitor's gate because so many alleged traitors were brought in for their beheading through this gate.

 The castle gates, shown behind DJ, are original.  Can't you just picture Robin Hood escaping through the castle door, just in the nick of time, as the gate slams to the ground behind him?

A heavy castle door - I picture it being stormed by several strong men, using a huge post to ram and weaken the holding. 

Dinner afterward - good ol' American BBQ.  All this sight seeing makes us hungry!

 We explored Hyde Park yesterday.  The outer rim is about 4.5 miles around.  There are really beautiful flower gardens and all sorts of fields and paths.  We only live a block up from the park.  I have a feeling we will go here often, and I'm looking forward to it!  Our church building is just on the opposite side of the park from us - Sunday walks in the park on the way to church, what could be better?

 This is a private residence in the park - maybe a gardner? I'm pretty sure I lived in this house at one point in one of my childhood dreams.  What a perfect little English cottage!

King William the III?  I think?  Pretty sure I lived in this house, too, probably when I was reading a Jane Austin book and dreaming about marrying Mr Darcy ;)  Now I have Lord Shelton - even better!

Morning run in Hyde Park.

We took a double-decker bus last night to meet one of Michelle's MBA friends for dinner.  We went to Brick Lane, a street in east London full of Indian restaurants.  It was good Indian food, but the experience was definitely different.  Each restaurant will send a person out on the street to try to lure customers in.  All you have to do is look in their general direction and they will pounce.  We were promised free drinks and 20% off.  Next time I'm going to bargain for free Naan and 30% off - whoever can promise me that has my patronage!

We finally got into our apartment today!  Wahoo!!! What a relief to be out of hotels and to begin to unpack.  We started the day a little groggy.  Even though we went to bed at 9 pm local time, we were lucky to get up before 8:30 am.  We finally forced ourselves out of bed, went to the hotel gym, cleaned up and checked out.  After a stop at the bank to open an account we ventured to our new home.  The rest of the day was spent finding the essentials - grocery stores, etc.   The video above shows a quick tour of our new abode.  Small, but comfortable enough.  Just a few trips to the store for some additional storage and I think we'll be set!

  Today we had to set up our bank account.  It happened that the branch we went to was right next to London tower.  Today we just toured the outside, can't wait to go inside and hear the stories inside these walls.  Pretty cool!

 Tower Bridge.

 When is England, do as the English do - our first taste of crumpets.  Yummy :)

We found a street with a familiar name - Cooper Street!

It seems the first step out the door is always the hardest.  It is your last look at everything that you are leaving behind, everything that is familiar and comfortable, and everything that you will be missing over the coming months. Then you take your second step, and then your third, and slowly the path before you begins to unfold and you realize that the future is exciting and worth the sometimes painful beginnings.


We flew out to NY Sunday morning, April 23rd, to begin our 8  month journey abroad.  Michelle worked in the Three World Financial Center tower for two days while DJ finalized the last details to prepare for our trip (stuff like porting our Sprint numbers to Google Voice and all that smart tech-y stuff).  New York was freezing cold, but we did find some time to enjoy some yummy Mexican food and, of course, DJ's beloved Shake Shack.  Michelle had several successful networking sessions, including meetings with two separate senior vice presidents - definitely a trip well spent.

Here are some of DJ's adventures in NY while Michelle was hob nobbing with the VPs:

 New World Trade Center building - impressive progress since we were living there.

 September 11th memorial pools.  You can't tell from the pictures, but that water is falling 30' into the pool below.

 Tulips in NY?  Who knew!  Red is a nice complement to the concrete.

 The building where George Washington was inaugurated president.

Tuesday afternoon we left for the airport for an all-night flight to London.  Michelle caught a little sleep, but poor DJ didn't sleep a wink, taking full advantage of the free movies on the flight to pass the time.  We landed this morning, Wednesday, at 9 am London time, 2 am Salt Lake time.  We got to our hotel around 11 am, settled in for a few minutes, then ventured out to get to know our new home.  Here are some of our adventures on our first day.

Buckingham Palace - the Amex office is right down the street, so Michelle will practically be neighbors with the Queen.  She's just waiting for her first invitation to tea.  I'm sure it won't be long...

Statue in front of Buckingham Palace.  At first we thought it was cool, but then we realized there are statues all over London of people and things that have no significance to us as Americans - the one behind me included :)

 Whoever said London was just like NY was totally WRONG!  It's nothing like New York.  It's cleaner, the buildings are shorter and you can see more blue sky, and there are parks and flowers and green life all over the place!  It's wonderful.  You can't see it very well, but behind us is a beautiful garden of spring flowers - quite lovely!

 Big Ben.

 Big Ben - again.

Westminster Abby.  You have to pay 18 pounds to get in.  Wonder if it's free on Sundays?  We might give it a try.

Two happy Americans in a new city, ready for lots of adventures ahead!  Stay tuned to hear more!

Well, it's almost 7 pm London time, which means you Salt Lakers are just sitting down to lunch.  DJ is going on 30+ hours without sleep.  We're both fighting the urge to fall asleep.  One more hour and we can go to bed almost in line with normal hours and adjust to this new time zone.  Hope we make it - DJ keeps falling asleep mid-sentence!

We miss you all and hope you will keep in touch with us as we journey on this adventure across the world!! :)